The internet was pretty divided after hearing that Ryan Gosling was going to play Ken in Barbie – and it turns out his kids felt the same way. The Oscar-nominated actor admitted that his daughters were confused after he accepted the role because they never had “no use for Ken.”
Gosling didn’t spend his childhood playing with Barbie, and his daughters Esmeralda and Amada with longtime partner Eva Mendes, were his introduction to this brand. They didn’t welcome his casting as Ken with a lot of enthusiasm, but they still helped him prep for one crucial scene in a movie.
“I think they’re confused as to why I would want to play Ken. They have no use for Ken. My kids were around for the months at home, as I was prepping for it. They came to set [one] day and were a huge sense of support and doing it with me off-camera,” he explained.
Gosling’s casting in Barbie ruffled a lot of feathers, but he managed to prove the naysayers wrong. The early reviews made singled him out as the film’s standout and scene-stealer, and fans got on board with his casting after seeing him channel his inner Ken in many hilarious viral interviews.
Gosling started dating Mendes after they met while filming The Place Beyond the Pines in 2011, and their daughters Esmeralda and Amada were born in 2014 and 2016, respectively.